Identification

IDNO

GMB_2011_APEIE-EL_v01_M_v01_A_PUF

Title

Africa Program for Education Impact Evaluation 2011

Subtitle

Endline Survey

Countries

Name

Code

Gambia, The

GMB

Study notes

This impact evaluation was designed to evaluate Whole School Development (WSD) program, a comprehensive school management and capacity building program in The Gambia. WSD provided a grant and management training to principals, teachers, and commu­nity representatives in a set of schools. In order to be able to separate the impact of the capacity building component from the grant, the second intervention group received the grant but did not receive the training. These two interventions were compared to a control group that received neither the grant nor the training. Each of 273 Gambian primary schools were randomized to one of the three groups. A grant of US$500 was given to all the schools in the WSD and the grant-only groups after a school development plan was presented. The schools were required to spend the funds on activities pertaining broadly to learning and teaching.

This study is part of the broader World Bank's Africa Program for Education Impact Evaluation.

The Gambia Bureau of Statistics, under the supervision of the research team, collected the data for this study. The baseline data was collected in 2008 at the onset of the study, the first round of follow-up data was collected in 2009, the second round of follow-up data was collected in 2010, and the endline data was collected in 2011.

The endline survey is documented here. All other rounds of this impact evaluation are published in the Microdata Library.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Version

Version

v01, edited dataset without direct identifying variables

Coverage

Unit of analysis

- schools,
- teachers,
- students

Universe

The survey covered all primary public schools and government aided and supported schools.

Producers and sponsors

Authoring entity

Name

Affiliation

David K. Evans

The World Bank

Moussa P. Blimpo

The World Bank

Funding agencies

Name

Education Program Development Fund

Other acknowledgement(s)

Name

Role

Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education in The Gambia

Support in study implementation

Sampling

Sampling procedure

The study was designed to cover all lower basic public and government-aided schools in regions 2, 3, 4, and 6 (276 schools). The two regions that were excluded from the study were Region 1, which is essentially only the capital city and was excluded on the basis that it was too urban and distinct from the rest of the country, and Region 5, because it was used extensively to pilot the WSD prior to the large randomized experiment. Of the 276 schools, 3 schools were excluded because they were new schools and had only grade 1 and 2, or were close during the time of the survey.

Of the 273 remaining schools, 90 schools were randomly assigned to the WSD treatment, 94 schools to the grant-only treatment, and 89 schools served as the control group. The schools were clustered in groups of 2 or 3 schools on the basis of geographic proximity to limit contamination while allowing useful exchange and cooperation between nearby schools. Because this represents the universe of schools meeting the inclusion criteria, rather than a sample, clustering of groups of schools is unnecessary in the subsequent analysis. The randomization was further stratified by school size and accessibility. Each group proved to be similar at baseline. As all schools remained in the study between baseline and endline, there is zero attrition.

The following procedures were observed at the school level:

Head teacher questionnaire
- Responded by the head teacher of the school
- The deputy head teacher can respond only if the head teacher is not present
- A senior teacher is allowed to respond in case either deputy or head teacher are not present.

Selection of classes for the classroom visit
- The enumerator gets the list of all the classes and selects two classrooms other than the ones participating in the written test
- 528 classes were visited, 175 are WSD; 180 are grant only; and 173 are control classes.

Selection of students for the written test
One grade 3 class and one grade 5 class were selected randomly in each school. In each of the classes, 20 students were selected randomly. The gender parity was observed throughout. In total 8,959 students were tested and about a third were selected in each treatment group.

Selection of students for the pupils' questionnaire
- 10 students (5 from grade 3 and 5 from grade 5) are randomly selected among the 40 who took the written test to respond to the questionnaire.
- 2,696 students were interviewed of which, 879 are WSD; 920 are grant only; and 897 are from the control schools.

Data Collection

Dates of collection

Start

End

2011

2011

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Questionnaires

1) Head Teacher Questionnaire

The head teacher questionnaire is designed to collect broad characteristics of the schools as a whole. The main sections of this questionnaire include the examination of the school facilities (main buildings, sanitary, water provision etc), enrollment and staffs, school management (leadership, involvement of the local community, records keeping etc.). The main respondent to this questionnaire is the head teacher. However, in the event of his absence, the deputy head teacher or a senior teacher answers the questions.

In 2010, researchers added many open-ended questions to the head teacher interviews to collect some information about their views regarding school management. We addressed similar questions to parents or caregivers in a few households whose children were in the relevant schools. The research team was also heavily involved on the ground for the entire first year of this program; the associated conversations with the government, the schools, and the communities add important information that is useful for a better understanding of the findings.

2) Classroom Visits Questionnaire

The classroom observation is intended to collect valuable information about the classroom activities and teaching practices. In each of the two classrooms randomly selected per school, the enumerator seats in the back of the class for 15 to 20 minutes and takes note of the teaching activities such as the students participation, teacher control over the class, etc. At the end of the observation, the teacher is asked a few questions about the school and his or her teaching such as lesson plans and lesson notes.

3) Written Numeracy and Literacy Test

The written numeracy and literacy test is made by experts in the field of testing to assess the overall performance of the students in classes 3 and 5. The test has 4 sections:
- The math section with 32 basic arithmetic questions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division)
-A word match section with 13 questions where students are given a word (20 questions in total) and they are to identify that word among a list of 4 words
- A vocabulary section where student are given a sentence with an underlined word and they are to identify the synonym of the underlined word among a list of 4 word
- A missing word section (11 questions) where a word is removed from a sentence and the students are to find the correct word that fits the blank among a list of 4 words.

4) Pupils' Questionnaire and Oral Literacy Test

The pupils' questionnaire is designed to collect some background information about the students and to give then an oral literacy test. This questionnaire collects information about the students' socio-demographic information, performance and progress, and welfare. In addition, the student are given an oral literacy test that has the following components:
- Letter name knowledge: The student are given a panel of 100 letters and are asked to read as many as they could in 60 seconds.
- Reading: The students are to read a small passage of 60 words and then they are asked a few questions about the content of the passage.
- Listening and comprehension: Here the enumerator reads a small passage aloud and then asks a few questions about the passage to the students.

Data access

Citation requirements

Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
- the Identification of the Primary Investigator
- the title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
- the survey reference number
- the source and date of download

Disclaimer and copyrights

Disclaimer

The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.